Prior to Islam, the Arabs’
store of ‘wisdom’ comprised proverbs and aphorisms – the results of
practical experience of mundane life, which were sometimes put in poetic
verse. They were characterized by observation of individual facts leading to
no reflection on universals. Islam presented to them revealed knowledge but
relied for its acceptance on an awakening of the intellect and common sense
– a stimulation of thought rather than stupefaction through a show of
miraculous powers. The result was that the early Muslims were fortified with
the self-assurance that in upholding the tents and practices of the new
faith they were only following the path of wisdom and virtue. Before long,
however, their conquests of the neighboring lands brought them into contact
with cultured communities belonging to other faiths, notably the Monophysite
and the Nestorian Christians and the Persians, in whose land the Greek
currents of thought mingled with the Perso-Indian tradition. Liberal social
intercourse and discussions on comparative religion brought home to Muslims
the realization that their religious thought was characterized by simplicity
worthy only of the common sense of practical-minded enthusiasts. There was
need for philosophical articulation and logical formulation to match the
subtleties of the Schoolman and the Dialectician. Besides the stimulus from
outside, there were certain individual problems of faith which were pressing
themselves for re-examination due to stresses and strains within their own
political and social fabric. Thus, the beginnings of philosophical thought
centered around the problems of predestination and freewill and the
attributes of Godhead with their bearing on unity – the main point of
difference with the believers in Trinity and Dualism. In order to proceed,
the Muslims needed a mastery of Greek philosophy – the source of what they
believed to be the tactical strength of their opponents.

During the ninth-tenth
centuries C.E. many of the treasures of Greek philosophy were passed on into
Arabic through the labors of Syrian Christians under the patronage of the
Caliphs and the elite of Baghdad. Though the works of the early Muslim
thinkers rely far more on neo-Platonist, neo-Pythagorean, Stoic and the
Hermetic writings, ultimately Aristotelianism came to reign supreme.
However, the interpretation of Aristotle was always based on neo [Platonic
commentaries. Moreover, there were several spurious works attributed to
Aristotle. One of them, the so-called Theology of Aristotle, based on
several sections of Plotinus’ Enneads, exercised a profound influence on
Muslim thinkers. The Arab scholars succeeded well in passing beyond the
narrow limits of Nestorian studies but perhaps it was beyond their resources
to disentangle Aristotle from neo-Platonism.

The first look by Muslims
at Greek philosophy amply confirmed their self-assurance that Reason could
not conflict with Revelation. The towering fact of monotheism emerging from
the circles of Greek philosophy so enraptured them that they set about
hastily adopting and appropriating the new acquisition instead of critically
examining it in all its details. This is best exhibited in the attempt at
parallelism between the language of philosophy and the language of religion,
e.g. the theory of the Spheres was taken over and the Intellects recognized
as ‘angels’ while the Intellectual Light was equated with Revelation. When
all the possible equations were exhausted, it was found on deeper thought
that there remained a considerable residue representing the area of
disagreement between Reason and Revelation. It is the working of the Muslim
mind, represented more by the Persians and the Turks than by the Arabs, on
this marginal area which justifies distinctive term ‘Arabic Philosophy’,
‘Arabic’ referring only to the language of expression and to some extent to
historical milieu.

The impact of philosophy
gave rise to two schools of thought among the Muslims. First, there were
those who clung to the primacy of Revelation but, in demonstrating its
identity with Reason resorted to a liberal or what appeared to them to be
the ‘reasonable’ and ‘natural’ formulation of the tenets of Islam. These
apologists of Revelation, the Mutazilites as they were called, went forth in
pursuit of the concept of Natural Religion until they veered them into a
position of antagonism to Orthodoxy. They could not resist the temptation of
imposing their intellectual Islam on the masses at the point of the bayonet
under the aegis of their champion, the Caliph Māmūn (813-33), a venture that
ruined them and defeated their own purpose. However, the sanguine showdown
came only after they had left their indelible mark on Muslim thought and
shaken orthodoxy out of rigidity forever.

Second, there were the
philosophers in the proper sense of the word who believed in the primacy of
Reason, but were at pains to demonstrate its compatibility with Revelation.
For them the end of the first stage of establishing an authentic version of
Greek philosophy was reached with the first and last of the Arab
philosophers, Al-Kindī (d: 873) and the Turk, Al-Farābī (d: 950). The second
stage of the formulation of a doctrinal system was completed by Ibn Sīnā
(Avicenna, d: 1037). The outstanding problems which these Muslim
philosophers had to grapple with were no easy ones: the Eternity of Matter,
the process of the creation of the Many from the Absolute One, His
Omnipotence and Omniscience with regard to the Universal and the Particular,
Immortality of the Soul and Resurrection, and, of course, the overall
consideration of the need for, and the nature and admissibility of,
Prophethood. From the orthodox point of view, the philosophers appeared to
be skeptics but were tolerated so long as they did not repudiate Revelation
outright. A strong reaction was, however, touched off by the attacks of Ibn
Al-Rawāndī (d: 935), a Jewish convert of questionable motives, on the
institution of prophethood. The reaction culminated in Ash‘arī (d: 935) and
Ghazzālī (d: 1111), both of whom exposed the unreliability of philosophy and
repudiated the same on behalf of Religion. They were, of course,
accomplished in the use of the weapons of philosophy and, in turning them
against unbridled Reason, satisfied not only the masses but also the
intellectuals. Only Ash‘arī’s accasionalism – the assertion of direct
activity and creation by God and the denial of natural causation – had a
reactionary effect on the Muslim mind. It was left to Ibn Rushd (Averroes,
1126-1198) to resuscitate philosophy by making amends for the vagaries of
the renegades and at the same time exposing the retaliatory partisan
attitude of Ghazzālī.

Significantly enough, Ibn
Al-Rawāndī declared himself dependent on Indian wisdom in the repudiation of
prophethood. The Samaniyya, i.e. the Buddhists, were well represented in the
cosmopolitan Abbāsid society by Jarīr Ibn Hāzim al-Azdī of Basra, who,
though remaining within the community, invited the intellectuals of his age
to his home and argued Buddhist philosophy with them. However, atheism or
agnosticism constituted a palpable heresy not only against Islam but also
against Greek philosophy; it was viewed only as a curio of philosophical
thought. The attacks on the institution of prophethood, which was equally
lacking in Greek philosophy, called forth a spirited defense especially from
the Fatimid Shiites who believed in the divine guidance of their Imams or
leaders. It was just because of its ultimate monotheism that Hindu – as
distinguished from the Buddhist – thought had greater chance of admission
within the circle of Muslim philosophers. Aristotelianism asserted the
existence of the Unmoved Mover but posited Eternal Matter in a sort of
Dualism with Him. It was here that the Monism of Hindu thought attracted the
Muslim thinkers strongly. Moreover, once the existence of God is regarded as
a fundamental Reality, the urge to establish some sort of communion with Him
is awakened. Strictly speaking, Islam provides for this communion only
through the consciousness of the will of God during the full course of Man’s
participation in the normal life-pattern of this world. Already under the
influence of neo-Platonism, ways of contemplation – as opposed to activity –
were being explored by the Muslims when the concepts of emanation and
remanation came across their way. Thus pantheism was able to enter
surreptitiously and under sufficient disguise. Yet the other characteristic
features of Hindu thought such as Incarnation and Transmigration were
vigilantly kept outside. Even the excesses resulting from the concept of
‘Union with God’ touched off violent reaction as in the case of Husain Ibn
Mansūr al-Hallāj (who was executed in 922). Once the contemplative ways of
communion came in vogue, the ascetic practices and the institution of the
Orders were borrowed from the Christian monks, the Hindus, whose
mortification of the flesh, nevertheless, continued to be abhorrent, and
from the Buddhist Sangh, whose moral ideal of self abnegation deeply
impressed the common Muslim. Remarkably enough, even vegetarianism was
dissociated from the notion of birth cycles or mere compassion for the
sentient being; it was assimilated to a much higher ideal which made Hayy
Ibn Yaqzān, the hero of Ibn Tufayl’s philosophical romance, pause to think
whether he was not obstructing the ordained processes of nature by
appropriating for himself the milk of the cow, which was really meant for
the subsistence of the calf, and the fruit of the tree, which was designed
for the propagation of the kind.

Philosophy also came to be
cultivated in secret societies possessing an esoteric doctrine in a
political setting. One of them, the Brethren of Purity (d: 970), became
famous for a somewhat incoherent compendium of philosophical thought
collected from all the sources and showing a marked deviation in favor of
Pythagorean speculation.

Lastly, Ibn Khaldūn
(1332-1476), the father of the Philosophy of History, applied the discipline
to the world of men, determining the facts of history and their proximate
causes and deriving the law governing the development of human society.

On the whole, Arabic
philosophy is remarkable for the evolution of a peculiar approach by Reason
towards Revelation. It was fortuitous indeed that the Muslims received
Aristotelianism overgrown with Neo-Platonism, but the synthesis which they
themselves assiduously worked afterwards remains distinctly theirs. Still
more important is the concession which Discursive Reason was ultimately
compelled to make in favor of Intuition. The example of Muslims reconciling
religion with philosophy was emulated by the Jews living in the western
parts of the Islamic world and they acted as intermediaries between Muslim
philosophers and Western Christians. The influence of Avicenna, Ghazzālī,
Averroes and others, so prominent in the writings of Thomas Aquinas,
ultimately led to Christian Europe’s discovery of the lost treasure of Greek
learning.